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King of Clubs: P.14638-R(2)

Object information

Current Location: In storage

Titles

King of Clubs

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Unknown
Publisher: Unknown

Entities

Categories

Description

A hand-coloured woodcut on pasteboard laid down on a large piece of mount board (height 407mm x 277mm) with six other cards from the same pack. A complete playing card portaying the King of Clubs ('Trèfles'), crowned and beardless, seated on a throne, facing right and holding a sceptre in his right hand. The suit-marker is at upper right and an inscription in Old French is printed along the right edge: 'honneur.au.roy' [trans. 'Honour to the King']. The image and text are contained within a border. French suits adopted the standing kings and queens of Spanish suits during the 15th-century and so the seated king here may indicate an earlier legacy of seated kings from German suits from which French suits derive.The style of the designs, especially in the facial features and hair, is very similar to those made by Jehan Faucil in Rouen in France during the early-mid 16th century. Faucil was active in Rouen c.1540-c.1560. See uncut and uncoloured sheets in the British Museum collection: 1851,0208.13-18. A handwritten inscription in graphite at lower right on the recto of the mount board: 'From the Brent Eleigh Library: found / shut up between the leaves of a book. / 1891'. Another inscription in graphite in a different hand (probably Eric Chamberlain, Assistant Keeper of Prints, 1962-1975) on the verso of the mount board: 'French / ?early 16th century'.

Legal notes

Unknown

Acquisition and important dates

by unknown

Dating

16th Century
Circa 1540 - Circa 1560

Note

Height 109mm x width 73mm

School or Style

French

Techniques used in production

Hand colouring
Woodcut

Identification numbers

Accession number: P.14638-R(2)
Primary reference Number: 225217
Stable URI

Audit data

Created: Wednesday 5 September 2018 Updated: Monday 2 October 2023 Last processed: Friday 8 December 2023

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Paintings, Drawings and Prints

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "King of Clubs" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/225217 Accessed: 2024-11-22 23:54:30

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/225217 |title=King of Clubs |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-22 23:54:30|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

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https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-225217

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